AHC Wank slavic paganism as much possible

As with any form of Paganism, preventing Christianity from arising or spreading will go a long way to preserving traditional religious norms. Of course, it does depend on the POD. A surviving non-Christian Roman Empire, for example, would likely absorb many religious quirks from the Germans. It's impossible to say what religion would look like a few hundred years down the line.

To really 'wank' Slavic Paganism you'd likely need to isolate it. Find a way that early Slavic culture cannot be permeated by others. If they come to Europe they'll be faced with European religions. If they stay in the east they'll be faced with Turkic traditions (whatever they turn out to be) in the long run.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
What was it that in OTL wanked Lithuanian paganism for so long? Is there a way to get something similar, only for the Slavs instead?
 
What was it that in OTL wanked Lithuanian paganism for so long? Is there a way to get something similar, only for the Slavs instead?
Well, I wouldn't say "wanked", more "survived for longer than the rest".

The main reason for that being very good circumstances and conditions. The Kievan Rus was reduced to a bunch of tiny principalities and under Mongol yoke. Poland and Hungary were weakened by Mongol invasions, the former was divided into separate duchies as well. The Teutonic and Livonian Orders saw fighting Lithuania as a sport and a source of income rather than a war of conquest, so they kept them alive and discouraged Christianization. And also because medieval Lithuanians were badass, - the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is what you get if you place an Early Medieval era state into a Late Medieval environment, while at the same time give them an OP ability to copy and adapt to pretty much anything you throw at them.

I'm not an expert of the formation of Slavic states, so I can't really say if the Slavs can do something similar, though.
 
Number one, nerf Christianity, number two, wank Neoplatonism. Insert a great philosopher or two in Slavic Europe, and by 1000 AD, Slavic Europe ends up with a full-formed, well-organised religion akin to Slavic Hinduism. It will have some manner of philosophy surrounding it too, as Hinduism always had. And the extent of Slavic Europe is probably far more in this timeline, probably to the Elbe as well as most of Southern Austria, and unlike OTL, not likely to be dislodged thanks to conquest/assimilation or such.

Is that good enough of a wank? It seems like a start.
 
Number one, nerf Christianity, number two, wank Neoplatonism. Insert a great philosopher or two in Slavic Europe, and by 1000 AD, Slavic Europe ends up with a full-formed, well-organised religion akin to Slavic Hinduism. It will have some manner of philosophy surrounding it too, as Hinduism always had. And the extent of Slavic Europe is probably far more in this timeline, probably to the Elbe as well as most of Southern Austria, and unlike OTL, not likely to be dislodged thanks to conquest/assimilation or such.

Is that good enough of a wank? It seems like a start.
The question is how much of a wank Neoplatonism can get. Historically it was tried in many incarnations and none really grabbed people in the long term, always remaining a rather elitist thing.
 
Nerfing Christianity at 200 CE is possible, but it´s interesting how you`d do it. One option I explored in my timeline Res Novae Romanae is more militant Christan groups in reaction to the Decian persecutions.

Neoplatonism looks like a great idea, and, @CountPeter , if you wed it with a grassroots-popular tale about the rebirths of your soul or something like it, I think it might work nicely. Maybe not as the exclusive philosophy: once again, the Hindu Synthesis didn`t build on only one of the Indian philosophical schools, either.

But: Is there a specific reason why only Slavic paganism is to be wanked? Because, e.g. in the Hindu analogy idea given above, it would be much easier to bring about a polytheistic "Western Synthesis" in analogy to the Hindu Synthesis if it may include Greco-Roman, Phrygian/Anatolian, Caucasian, Germanic, Celtic, Daco-Thracian, Baltic etc. paganisms as well. Maybe Berber and Arab ones as well. Overlappings at least with them, and maybe even with Uralic paganisms, although the latter might show a tendency towards being in-between Western and Turkic/Turko-Mongol alt-Tengrism.
 
Nerfing Christianity at 200 CE is possible, but it´s interesting how you`d do it. One option I explored in my timeline Res Novae Romanae is more militant Christan groups in reaction to the Decian persecutions.
Nerfing Christianity is the best bet imo.

Neoplatonism looks like a great idea, and, @CountPeter , if you wed it with a grassroots-popular tale about the rebirths of your soul or something like it, I think it might work nicely. Maybe not as the exclusive philosophy: once again, the Hindu Synthesis didn`t build on only one of the Indian philosophical schools, either.
Hinduism had a hell of a lot going for it though unlike Platonism. Whilst Hinduism was rich with lots of different philosophical positions and deities from the subcontinent, there was and is a common theological basis for all the "Vedic faiths" in terms of the Vedas, even if you did not subscribe to a specific philosophy. 2 people could believe that Vishnu/Shiva is the Ishvara, hold a layman/elitist position on Moksha, be pacifistic/a warrior etc whilst still having in common the eternal way put forward in a shared grand mythology and even taking from each others scriptures (e.g. It not being unheard of for Shaivanites to discuss the Gita) in a way that is still philosophically consistent. I can be a devotee of Krishna and look at Vishnu as the embodiment of the wild for instance, justifying and fitting it in to my world view whilst being consistent to the joint mythology

Even with all of that, Hinduism's survival was far from guaranteed. It regularly had to fight to survive often by the skin of its teeth and often by radically changing what it was in the face of populist religions and rival philosophies.

Neoplatonism doesn't have that, nor does Pagan Europe. To do well and become populist, Neoplatonism had to wed itself to various other religions because it has no real mythology of its own to wed itself, and certainly no shared one. One issue that Neoplatonist purists and stoics had OTL was that the gods they followed really didn't match up well to the "logos" ideal, ending in them being imperfect "shadows" of the logos and potentially reffering to them in a way which would not be popular.

Compare this to where Neoplatonism was successful and it becomes more clear. Gnosticism was super divided and inconsistent because there was no one way to apply it to Ann abrahamic context (Making the Old Testament largely th story of an evil entity is not going to curry much in the way of favours) and Manichaeism was relatively successful but could never truly entrench itself compared to those who took Neoplatonism "lite" (e.g. Mainstream Christianity and Sufi Islam).
[/QUOTE]
 
Nerfing Christianity is the best bet imo.

Hinduism had a hell of a lot going for it though unlike Platonism. Whilst Hinduism was rich with lots of different philosophical positions and deities from the subcontinent, there was and is a common theological basis for all the "Vedic faiths" in terms of the Vedas, even if you did not subscribe to a specific philosophy. 2 people could believe that Vishnu/Shiva is the Ishvara, hold a layman/elitist position on Moksha, be pacifistic/a warrior etc whilst still having in common the eternal way put forward in a shared grand mythology and even taking from each others scriptures (e.g. It not being unheard of for Shaivanites to discuss the Gita) in a way that is still philosophically consistent. I can be a devotee of Krishna and look at Vishnu as the embodiment of the wild for instance, justifying and fitting it in to my world view whilst being consistent to the joint mythology

Even with all of that, Hinduism's survival was far from guaranteed. It regularly had to fight to survive often by the skin of its teeth and often by radically changing what it was in the face of populist religions and rival philosophies.

Neoplatonism doesn't have that, nor does Pagan Europe. To do well and become populist, Neoplatonism had to wed itself to various other religions because it has no real mythology of its own to wed itself, and certainly no shared one. One issue that Neoplatonist purists and stoics had OTL was that the gods they followed really didn't match up well to the "logos" ideal, ending in them being imperfect "shadows" of the logos and potentially reffering to them in a way which would not be popular.

Compare this to where Neoplatonism was successful and it becomes more clear. Gnosticism was super divided and inconsistent because there was no one way to apply it to Ann abrahamic context (Making the Old Testament largely th story of an evil entity is not going to curry much in the way of favours) and Manichaeism was relatively successful but could never truly entrench itself compared to those who took Neoplatonism "lite" (e.g. Mainstream Christianity and Sufi Islam).
[/QUOTE]
No doubt religious reform was necessary in the Late Middle Ages and so was philosophical revival of some, more down-to-earth nature, this was the market niche Christianity occupied so well.

Still, the Western paganisms weren't so hopeless. Across the Mediterranean, a shared synthesised mythology had developed since classical Greek times. People from opposing philosophical backgrounds still viewed themselves as belonging and formed by that culture. This culture had absorbed punic and anatolian traditions. Had it modernised during late Antiquity, why would it not synthesise Slavic and germanic paganisms which weren't so very different, not even in the eyes of the contemporaries.
 
No doubt religious reform was necessary in the Late Middle Ages and so was philosophical revival of some, more down-to-earth nature, this was the market niche Christianity occupied so well.[/quote]Even independant of the niche it filled, Christianity still had a hell of a lot going for it. It had populist elements whilst holding enough of neoplatonism that people felt they could devote themselves to it.
It naturally had structure to it, and even though that structure has had many forms the idea of the preist and the elect is common to a lot of surviving religions; Manichaeism as the most succesful neoplatonist/gnostic religion for instance borrowed it's structures from Buddhism. Neoplatonism was so bound to philosophers and an elite, that without some very far back POD (which would probably butterfly christianity) it is going to have to build itself upon something as formidable as Christianity.

"Neoplatonism" just didn't have that. You can't get that much more populist than manichaeism did without it only paying tribute to neoplatonism.

There are just some religions that are going to have trouble. Jainism for instance is a fantastic one, where outside of some reform changing it so drastically that it is hard to recognise it as the same religion, having it's most holy men and women survive on so little whilst wearing nothing is a recipe for disaster when you have to travel across desert or mountain ranges to get anywhere. Likewise, Neoplatonism unfortunately came about in a culture which was a poor fit (god wise), with no real shared mythology to draw upon (note, it could share but others could not with it) and it never got large enough to have a significant cultural identity behind it.
Weirdly, I actually can see neoplatonism being a nice fit for a mass-movement stoicism, but that too would be hard to pull off.

Still, the Western paganisms weren't so hopeless. Across the Mediterranean, a shared synthesised mythology had developed since classical Greek times.
Across the med, yes. Not neccesarily far up north. But even in the med, there wasn't the same strength of resources for everyone to refer back to like in the Indian subcontinent.
People from opposing philosophical backgrounds still viewed themselves as belonging and formed by that culture.
This isn't the same as having a philosophical set of texts to refer to. By the time there was a shared "med culture", a lot of what we take for granted on the myths and legends had been lost; nevermind a lot of important texts.
This culture had absorbed punic and anatolian traditions. Had it modernised during late Antiquity, why would it not synthesise Slavic and germanic paganisms which weren't so very different, not even in the eyes of the contemporaries.
Because it never really did OTL. There is a significant difference between recognising other's gods as your own, and actually incorporating their gods into your own. A lot of celtic and germanic gods just kinda died off or where ignored.
 
I actually wonder if a 'softer' Christianisation would work. Rather than outright taking control of the hearts and minds of the people, a less pervasive form of Christianity ends up basically being absorbed by traditional Pagan faiths. Rod/Svarog is 'God', Perun takes on the role of Christ, and Veles becomes a Satanic figure. Other deities replace the Saints/the Virgin. This way you've concentrated religious worship around three main figures rather than across a whole host of minor gods and goddesses. Basically, allow Christianity to organise the native religion without destroying it.
 
Number one, nerf Christianity, number two, wank Neoplatonism. Insert a great philosopher or two in Slavic Europe, and by 1000 AD, Slavic Europe ends up with a full-formed, well-organised religion akin to Slavic Hinduism. It will have some manner of philosophy surrounding it too, as Hinduism always had. And the extent of Slavic Europe is probably far more in this timeline, probably to the Elbe as well as most of Southern Austria, and unlike OTL, not likely to be dislodged thanks to conquest/assimilation or such.

Is that good enough of a wank? It seems like a start.

You can't just put a random Great Philosopher into a region and get a Hinduism equivalent. There has to be an environment ready to form and accept that kind of thing. The Slavic regions are just too underdeveloped are their own. They developed through contact with Germans who themselves developed through contact with the Romans. Christianity was part of the civilizational package.

Even independant of the niche it filled, Christianity still had a hell of a lot going for it. It had populist elements whilst holding enough of neoplatonism that people felt they could devote themselves to it.
It naturally had structure to it, and even though that structure has had many forms the idea of the preist and the elect is common to a lot of surviving religions; Manichaeism as the most succesful neoplatonist/gnostic religion for instance borrowed it's structures from Buddhism. Neoplatonism was so bound to philosophers and an elite, that without some very far back POD (which would probably butterfly christianity) it is going to have to build itself upon something as formidable as Christianity.

"Neoplatonism" just didn't have that. You can't get that much more populist than manichaeism did without it only paying tribute to neoplatonism.

There are just some religions that are going to have trouble. Jainism for instance is a fantastic one, where outside of some reform changing it so drastically that it is hard to recognise it as the same religion, having it's most holy men and women survive on so little whilst wearing nothing is a recipe for disaster when you have to travel across desert or mountain ranges to get anywhere. Likewise, Neoplatonism unfortunately came about in a culture which was a poor fit (god wise), with no real shared mythology to draw upon (note, it could share but others could not with it) and it never got large enough to have a significant cultural identity behind it.
Weirdly, I actually can see neoplatonism being a nice fit for a mass-movement stoicism, but that too would be hard to pull off.

Across the med, yes. Not neccesarily far up north. But even in the med, there wasn't the same strength of resources for everyone to refer back to like in the Indian subcontinent. This isn't the same as having a philosophical set of texts to refer to. By the time there was a shared "med culture", a lot of what we take for granted on the myths and legends had been lost; nevermind a lot of important texts. Because it never really did OTL. There is a significant difference between recognising other's gods as your own, and actually incorporating their gods into your own. A lot of celtic and germanic gods just kinda died off or where ignored.

"Neoplatonism" isn't a religion and I don't know why people keep treating it like one. It's just a philosophical way to rationalize the gods. You think the average Christian peasant cared about the precise nature of Jesus' divine and human sides? Of course not. That kind of thinking (which was heavily influenced by Neoplatonism) was restricted to the elite. You have to look at the entire integrated system of "paganism", not just one small aspect. There's nothing stopping someone from rationalizing divinity through Neoplatonism and being a member of a Mystery Cult. They fill different needs.

And there were important and respected texts to refer to. TBH I don't really get how "Hellenism" and Hinduism are so different. They seem to have a lot of similarities to me. To quote from @carlton_bach and @jakewilson :

There was such a religion, to all intents and purposes, in the later Hellenistic and Roman period. It unified and sort-of-reconciled divergent traditions under a universal concept of the divine (systematised by the Neoplatonic philosophers later on) and had its body of scripture (Homer, the Theogony, the various myths recorded in a number of collections, but at that time much more present in oral tradition, a presumably large, but now almost extinct body of song and story, and the interpretative works of a large number of revered teachers such as Plato, Apollonios, Saccas or Plotinus). Its survivability in the face of civilisational collapse was never tested, since the Theodosian Empire destroyed it, but it's quite conceivable that it would have developed into something broadly similar to Hinduism or traditional Chinese religion.

Well, it's not a religion of the book in the way that the Abrahamic faiths claim inerrancy for their respective books.
Outside of that, though, I don't see why the Iliad and Odyssey, the Homeric Hymns and the Works and Days, and even later lyric and dramatic works couldn't play the part of the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Rigveda, and the Upanishads.

The Vedas, however, are mostly about the old Vedic gods like Agni or Indra, and so aren't as relevant to modern Hindus the way the Quran is to Muslims or the Bible is to Christians. They're as relevant to modern Hinduism as the Homeric corpus is to the worship of popular gods of the Roman Empire like Isis, Dionysus, and Sol. So I don't see the lack of revealed texts as an impediment to a successful religion.

Hinduism isn't a single unified religion. It's diverse set of henotheisms (Vaishnavites, Shaivites, Shaktists, etc.), a set of philosophical schools (some of them atheistic or atomistic), and on ongoing rationalization of the Vedic gods found in the old epic texts. I imagine Hellenism (or whatever you would want to call it, but Hellenism is what ancient pagans identified their religion as in contrast to the Christians and others) would have developed in much the same way.
Already in Roman times henotheistic devotions existed alongside polytheistic folk traditions. The gods of the mysteries could easily become the pagan mainstream. Helios/Mitra, Kybele (the Greek Mother of Gods and Roman Magna Mater), and Dionysus could easily see the sort of glory that Vishnu/Krishna, Shakti, and Shiva get. At the same time, these popular pieties existed alongside Platonism, Plotinism, Epicureanism, Stoicism and all the rest. And finally there are the Olympian gods who would go the way of the Vedic gods, existing in folk traditions, art, and ancient myths, but mostly rationalized away.
As for a Western equivalent to dharma, if you really need one, why not Aristotle's obsession with virtue?

There's even a possibility for a Brahman equivalent as @Lysandros Aikiedes points out:

One doesn't need to make the Roman Empire more successful, you just need to keep people like Constantine out of the succession. Maximinus Daia was the first emperor to attempt the idea of organising the collective Pagan priesthoods into a single hierarchy, empowering the high priests as magistrates. Without Constantine's endorsement, any ideological shift within Roman Polytheism after 300 CE could occur if Christianity was still on the sidelines. The problem isn't cross-religious syncretism, but what new hierarchal structures and popularist ideologies could be applied to preserve traditional Polytheism.
 
I actually wonder if a 'softer' Christianisation would work. Rather than outright taking control of the hearts and minds of the people, a less pervasive form of Christianity ends up basically being absorbed by traditional Pagan faiths. Rod/Svarog is 'God', Perun takes on the role of Christ, and Veles becomes a Satanic figure. Other deities replace the Saints/the Virgin. This way you've concentrated religious worship around three main figures rather than across a whole host of minor gods and goddesses. Basically, allow Christianity to organise the native religion without destroying it.
So a bit like Lithuanian Christianity OTL?
 
"Neoplatonism" isn't a religion and I don't know why people keep treating it like one. It's just a philosophical way to rationalize the gods. You think the average Christian peasant cared about the precise nature of Jesus' divine and human sides? Of course not. That kind of thinking (which was heavily influenced by Neoplatonism) was restricted to the elite. You have to look at the entire integrated system of "paganism", not just one small aspect. There's nothing stopping someone from rationalizing divinity through Neoplatonism and being a member of a Mystery Cult. They fill different needs.
...That is sort of what I was talking about and I presumed was taken as a given; particularly the underlined.
There wasn't a neoplatonist "religion" sure, but there were religious movements which were (as I discussed) more or less influenced by it. Mainstream christianity referenced it which was useful for fitting the requirements that I beleive make a religion succesful, but many of the attempts to apply it in such a way that it is distinctly neoplatonist (or gnostic, which is as "pure" a translation as you are going to get), didn't last long for the reasons I talked about above.
I personally beleive that any neoplatonist inspired religion is not going to survive well without most of the philosophy being chopped up.

And there were important and respected texts to refer to.
Not in the same way. I think the best analogy I could give would be to look at this from the perspective of how they present metaphysics. The Vedic faiths from their early days had a comprehensive joint literature that (even if one did not directly worship the content of a specific book) could be seen as analogous to your own faith. In comparrison, nothing nearly remotely on the scale of the Mahabaratha, nevermind the Vedas exists in the Roman world; meaning that important questions such as the nature of the gods (are they shadows of the one? Are they a full pantheon or is that only a metaphor?), what happens when we die (do we reincarnate? Can we become gods? Is there an eternal afterlife?) and other major questions are by and large settled even in the early days in a way that gave the scholars of medieval and earlier India terminology to use whenever something went against the greater Vedic canon; Astika as the position of accepting Vedic epistemology and Nastika as the position of rejecting it.

The Roman world never came close to this.


TBH I don't really get how "Hellenism" and Hinduism are so different. They seem to have a lot of similarities to me. To quote from @carlton_bach and @jakewilson
There's even a possibility for a Brahman equivalent as @Lysandros Aikiedes points out:
I don't feel quite fair in adressing the quotes as I don't know the full context, but I do have some things to say about them.


There was such a religion, to all intents and purposes, in the later Hellenistic and Roman period. It unified and sort-of-reconciled divergent traditions under a universal concept of the divine (systematised by the Neoplatonic philosophers later on) and had its body of scripture (Homer, the Theogony, the various myths recorded in a number of collections, but at that time much more present in oral tradition, a presumably large, but now almost extinct body of song and story, and the interpretative works of a large number of revered teachers such as Plato, Apollonios, Saccas or Plotinus). Its survivability in the face of civilisational collapse was never tested, since the Theodosian Empire destroyed it, but it's quite conceivable that it would have developed into something broadly similar to Hinduism or traditional Chinese religion.
I don't see any real evidence that such a unified religion did fully exist. I see evidence of people trying to force one (e.g. Julian the Apostate) but no true sense of unity; I don't know for instance that the hybrid positions of the Cult of Sibyl/Sol Invictus/traditional paganism thing he had going on was reflective or approved of throughout the med, and I could see conflicts between it and the Isis/Osiris fertility cults which appreciated a duality where he did not.

Well, it's not a religion of the book in the way that the Abrahamic faiths claim inerrancy for their respective books.
Outside of that, though, I don't see why the Iliad and Odyssey, the Homeric Hymns and the Works and Days, and even later lyric and dramatic works couldn't play the part of the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Rigveda, and the Upanishads.
Because the books mentioned are full of references to the Vedas and are holy books in their own right which make a point of gaining authority from the Vedas.
I think the better comparrison would be the book of Mormon. Without the bible to refer back to, it would just be a kinda neet sword and sandal story (not neccesarily the most entertaining one but you get the point) whilst because of it's references back to the bible it becomes a holy book in it's own right.
Whilst the Puranas are not neccesarily scripture, they are treated as such for being commentaries and means by which you can interpret the Vedas.

The Vedas, however, are mostly about the old Vedic gods like Agni or Indra, and so aren't as relevant to modern Hindus the way the Quran is to Muslims or the Bible is to Christians. They're as relevant to modern Hinduism as the Homeric corpus is to the worship of popular gods of the Roman Empire like Isis, Dionysus, and Sol. So I don't see the lack of revealed texts as an impediment to a successful religion.
Scripture doesn't behave the same way as in the Abrahamic faith, but every Hindu (and to a latter extent Sikh) I have spoken to personally would find that absurd. Also, considering the most succesful prosletysing variant of Hinduism (the Hare Krishnas) refers specifically to the Bhagavad Gita (a Purana) which in turn is dependant on the Vedas in a fashion which is quite typical for a Bhakti practitioner is a good example of the poppycock that would appear to be in that statement (again, don't know the context of the quote). If I had to guess, I would imagine that the confusion stems from the prevalance of Tantra or tantric like philosophies in many schools of Hinduism where one doesn't neccesarily need the Vedas, but that isn't any different from a Sufi who feels Allah as the source of their guidance.

Hinduism isn't a single unified religion. It's diverse set of henotheisms (Vaishnavites, Shaivites, Shaktists, etc.), a set of philosophical schools (some of them atheistic or atomistic), and on ongoing rationalization of the Vedic gods found in the old epic texts. I imagine Hellenism (or whatever you would want to call it, but Hellenism is what ancient pagans identified their religion as in contrast to the Christians and others) would have developed in much the same way.
Already in Roman times henotheistic devotions existed alongside polytheistic folk traditions. The gods of the mysteries could easily become the pagan mainstream. Helios/Mitra, Kybele (the Greek Mother of Gods and Roman Magna Mater), and Dionysus could easily see the sort of glory that Vishnu/Krishna, Shakti, and Shiva get. At the same time, these popular pieties existed alongside Platonism, Plotinism, Epicureanism, Stoicism and all the rest. And finally there are the Olympian gods who would go the way of the Vedic gods, existing in folk traditions, art, and ancient myths, but mostly rationalized away.
As for a Western equivalent to dharma, if you really need one, why not Aristotle's obsession with virtue?
There are some interesting conceptions here.
Whilst Hinduism is not a single unified religion (indeed earlier I mention the Vaishnavites and the Shaivanites in contrast), it is a nice short hand means of describing the modern religions which subscribe to the vedic authority. It is one of the reasons why in short hand it is super easy to recognise Shaktism for instance as another "Hindu" religion where we can instantly seperate it from Buddhism despite both having Dharma, Rebirth, Karma, Moksha, Dukkha etc. As for "atheistic hinduism", it does need to be adressed that Charvaka (which is often sited as Hindu Atheism) is considered Nastika although Wikipedia seems to list it in it's section on Hindu Atheism anyway. A "hindu atheism" is very different that you might consider atheism to be in the normal context, Samkhya (the most often sited in this) having arguments against a universe creator, but in many ways is closer to what we could consider Animism, or an almost "Sagan" view of the cosmos (but that is my interpretation of it anyway).
I am not opposed to something coming in and keeping alive "Hellenic Paganism", but I am of the opinion that we need a POD that is earlier than Christianity for a greater form of Commonality to begin. Maybe much earlier still, as if it must be specifically Hellenistic, then we still have notable divisions in 160bc as Cato the Elder is still complaining about the inferiority of everything about the Greeks.
The underlined is important though and is the whole purpose of my "neoplatonist" critique. The major philosophical schools which could give paganism "teeth" against religions with both populism and philosophical prowess like Christianity were ultimately super Elitist. The popular faith could not defend itself well against the built in scriptural philosophy that Christianity could provide and it did not matter if the elite could win the philosophical/theological battle because it would mean nothing if the popular oppinion made them a minority. That needs to change, and needs to change early.

Much of what I adressed in terms of needing specific scripture I would like to add was specifically aimed at neoplatonism. I honestly can see many ways that the ancient hellenic faith could survive, but I just don't see neoplatonism as the means by which it reliably does this.
 
Just pick a good ruler, use Prestige to buy defensive troops any time someone holy-wars you, then keep them around and start romper-stomping your neighbours until you get too big to fail. Then capture three holy sites and take the Reform the Faith decision.

More seriously, religious wanking isn't just a matter of playing Crusader Kings II. In reality this would have to start with a severely nerfed or outright failed spread of Christianity.
 

Coming back to this post, I think I can see what you mean. I still disagree but I've been reading up on the topic of Neoplatonism/the survival of "Paganism" and I'm gearing up for a thread to fully make my case in. Instead of responding here, I'll mention you with an @CountPeter when I make the thread and we can continue the debate there if you'd like.
 
Coming back to this post, I think I can see what you mean. I still disagree but I've been reading up on the topic of Neoplatonism/the survival of "Paganism" and I'm gearing up for a thread to fully make my case in. Instead of responding here, I'll mention you with an @CountPeter when I make the thread and we can continue the debate there if you'd like.
Sure! I'm looking forward to it.

My responses may be limited depending on when you post it though. I am in the midst of moving house, getting a new job and maternity appointments... so if I don't respond for a few days, don't presume I have lost interest.
 
Top